Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!tlh
From: tlh@cs.purdue.EDU (Thomas L. Hausmann)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: What is CS? (Was re First languages)
Message-ID: <3684@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 30 Mar 88 16:45:43 GMT
References: <1522@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <364@abcom.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 56
Summary: Universities are not to train...

In article <364@abcom.ATT.COM>, rgsmeb@abcom.ATT.COM (Michel Behna) writes:
> From article <1522@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, by windley@iris.ucdavis.edu (Phil Windley):
> > I couldn't care less what language my students need to know to get a job
> > with IBM.  They should know how to program, they should be able to deal
> > with abstraction, they should be able to design algorithms, but they
> > shouldn't necessarily learn JCL, COBOL (ugh!), or even C because that's
> > what HP wants.  
> > Phil Windley
> You may not care but as someone who graduated and had to find a job I think
> you are wrong. Academia has the singular privilege of being able to afford
> to hire unknowledgeable (read unskilled) people and training them.

Do you also think it is a Univerisity's place to train people for industrial
jobs?  If you want to learn SKILLS while in school, internships and coop programs
are your options.  You MAY get job specific skills at a college or university,
but to say a university "trains" people is not accurate.  (As I have said before, 
I do not think it is a univerisity's place to "train" people for a "job."  Nor
do I know of any university's stated MISSION including "high placement for
our graduates.")

> I agree with you about what they should be able to do(design, abstract,..)
> but what good is it to you if the person is unable to translate these into
> a language that a computer can understand. 

Do you measure the worth of a computer scientist by how well they program?
Admittedly, programming is a SKILL largely taken for granted in universities
and within the system.  But whether a university should take the time to
train the students to be better programmers is unclear (and I am against it.)
 
> But more important, MOST companies want you to be productive as quickly as
> possible ...

True.
  
> The real world wants productive and bright people! If you're bright they're 
> willing to devote a lot of effort to training you but if you are unproductive
> BYE BYE!!! This is not to say that design, analysis, ... are non productive
> but that rarely do you start as a senior systems analyst. There are a few
> positions out there which require research but they are rare.
> Michel Behna
> amdahl!abcom!rgsmeb


Perhaps I am just picking on word choice above Michel.  What you say of the
"real world" is of course true.  It is just that I hold this idealized(?)
view of how universities should be.

-Tom

      .^.^.        Tom Hausmann 
     . O O .       tlh@mordred.cs.purdue.edu    ( ARPA )
      . v .        ...!purdue!tlh   ( UUCP  )
     / | | \
     ./   \.       "Whooo do ya think you're foolin' "
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